Efforts to promote tourism in and around The Dalles have been gathering momentum in recent months, and leaders of The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce are asking city officials to provide more money to cover staffing costs.
Lisa Farquharson, president of the chamber, said the community needs to maintain its focus on boosting tourism. She wants about $18,700 more from the city to add hours to two staff positions.
“The more aggressive we are on this level, the more effective we can be. We really have to stay aggressive,” she said. “Tourism is a driving factor in economic development in many communities, and it has increased every year for the past four years in The Dalles. Our hope is that those numbers will increase even more due to more aggressive marketing.”
Currently, the chamber’s tourism coordinator, Michelle Harmon, is working 40 hours a week, while Tiffany Hardin works 30 hours a week in the chamber’s tourism marketing position.
“This is adding hours to the tourism coordinator and (full-time) benefits,” said Farquharson. “It is also adding to the hours of the marketing position and totally dedicating that position to tourism instead of only part of the hours. Tourism is so busy, and we’re competing with the entire Northwest.”
The tourism coordinator works directly with the cruise ships, creating new excursions and collaborating with local businesses to benefit from the visits; works on bicycle transportation, which is expected to jump dramatically with the upcoming extension of the Historic Highway 30 through The Dalles; and creating The Dalles Walking Tour information, among other duties.
The tourism marketing person helps develop the “Explore The Dalles” website; markets The Dalles on a variety of social media venues designing ads for tourism publications; designs, develops and coordinates the city’s “Tourism Directory” and other tasks.
In all, the chamber wants to maintain a total of 70 hours per week for tourism outreach.
“This change would allow us to be more aggressive in our marketing in advertising, website, and social media platforms,” Farquharson said. “We need to be there to be competitive with the many other cities in the Northwest who are all trying to increase the numbers of tourists.”
Council member Dan Spatz said the chamber is working diligently on this mission and needs support.
“The only downside is, all this activity places a greater workload on chamber staff, who need to ensure that any visitor's first impression of the community is a favorable one,” he said.
“The chamber's budget will take this into account next year, but the director asked for the city's help this year in making up an unanticipated budget deficit related directly to that increased workload.”
Councilor Russ Brown said at the Dec. 12 city meeting he supports the chamber’s objectives and efforts, but questioned whether money should be taken out of its contingency fund to help with the chamber’s staffing requests.
Spatz made a motion to take money out of the city’s contingency fund to help cover the chamber’s staffing requests, but the motion failed on a 3-2 vote. Councilors Spatz and Tim McGlothlin supported it, while councilors Brown, Taner Elliott and Linda Miller voted in opposition.
The council has set a goal to keep 10 percent of the city’s budget in reserve for any unexpected problems that might come up.
Currently, the fund is below the set threshold.
“I’m not troubled by the request, but I’m concerned about the contingency fund,” Brown explained.
“The contingency is there to fix, for example, the air conditioner on the roof.”
After the meeting, Spatz said the chamber’s efforts to expand tourism has benefitted the entire community.
“Not only the chamber, but the city itself enjoyed remarkable success this past year with expanded cruise ship visitation,” Spatz explained.
“We saw more visitors downtown, more visitors to the Discovery Center, and an overall increase in business activity driven in part by the chamber's marketing strategies.
“We can expect even greater success in 2017, given the continuing regional and national attention now focused on The Dalles and the Columbia River Gorge as a visitor destination.”
Mayor Steve Lawrence said he believes the chamber’s efforts on tourism are productive and important, but he wants to ensure the city has a backup fund.
“Contingency is for emergency, which this is not,” said Lawrence.
“Second, we have a policy which requires us to try and keep it at 10 percent, which we are below. I don't know how much is actually there, but it was reduced by a previous overly optimistic prediction of income; a situation we are going to try hard to prevent in this next budget cycle.” Farquharson said she understands the city’s wish to have emergency funds on hand.
“The city is so supportive of our partnership. I felt that it truly came down to the matter of if the city had funding to do this,” she said.
Members of the city council agreed to review the status of the city’s 10 percent contingency fund and will take another look at funding for the chamber.
The council is expected to make a final decision on the chamber’s request at its Jan. 9 meeting.
“I'm hopeful the council will be able to reach a compromise that will help keep the chamber fully funded,” Brown said. “My biggest concern is the level of funds in our contingency account.”
Commented
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.